El Salvador cuts relations with Taiwan
Compiled from news services
SANSALVADOR, El Salvador — El Salvador severed relations with Taiwan Tuesday and established ties with China, leaving 17 nations that officially recognize the Taiwanese government.
Latin America and the Caribbean have been an important bastion of support for Taiwan. Nine of the countries that maintain diplomatic ties are in the region. That has been eroding, however. Panama broke ties with Taiwan’s government in 2017, and the Dominican Republic did the same in May 2018.
China’s Communist government seeks to absorb self-governed, democratic Taiwan and is campaigning to erase acknowledgments of Taiwanese sovereignty.
Italy deadly flash flood
ROME— After water roared down a narrow canyon in southern Italy, killing at least 10 hikers and sweeping some as far as two miles downstream, rescue workers continued searching on Tuesday for survivors and more victims.
A downpour on Monday during what is usually a dry time of year sent a flash flood down the Raganello Gorge, a popular destination for hikers in the Calabria region, overwhelming people with a surge that suddenly rose as much as eight feet, witnesses said. At least five people were missing on Tuesday.
Helicopters made perilous dips into the gorge to lower rescue workers and extract survivors, while other rescue crews used ropes to rappel down cliffs to bring people out. Officials said about two dozen people were rescued.
Ex-Nazi guard deported
BERLIN — A 95-yearold former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived quietly in New York City for decades was carried out of his home on a stretcher by federal agents and flown to Germany early Tuesday in what could prove to be the last U.S. deportation of a World War II-era warcrimes suspect.
Jakiw Palij’s expulsion, at President Donald Trump’s urging, came 25 years after investigators accused Mr. Palij of lying about his wartime past to get into the U.S. It was largely symbolic because officials in Germany have repeatedly said there is insufficient evidence to prosecute him.
NATO talks with Russia
WASHINGTON— Sen. Rand Paul floated the possibility of dialogue with Russia about keeping NATO from further expanding its umbrella into Eastern Europe.
The Kentucky Republican, who recently returned from a trip to Russia for meetings with Russian lawmakers, suggested that the country’s leaders may have fears of NATO seeking to go as far as expanding into Georgia and Ukraine.
Mr. Paul was speaking at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on U.S.-Russian relations featuring testimony from both the State Department and the Department of the Treasury.
Mr. Paul’s line of questions and commentary was much different from Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle who took a much harder line toward President Vladimir Putin. But Mr. Paul asked whether the existing U.S. sanctions regime is working and what an alternative might look like.
ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s eight-year bailout ordeal will forever be bookended by two of the country’s iconic islands.
In choosing the island of Ithaca to declare the end of the bailout Tuesday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras harked back to one of the country’s legendary heroes from antiquity.
From the purported home place of Odysseus, the mythical Mycenaean king whose arduous 10-year travels are immortalized in Homer’s “Odyssey,” Mr. Tsipras said in a televised address that Greece was ready to become a “normal” country again.
“Since 2010, Greece has undergone a modern Odyssey,” he said, in a speech heavy on Homeric and nautical allusions.
Mr. Tsipras declared Greece has regained financial freedom after years of bowing to bailout creditors’ demands for sorely needed cutbacks and reforms.
Overlooking a small bay